Picture: Danny Kaan
Off the Top with Jason Kravitz continues at Live at Zedel, London until 19 January 2020.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Musical improv might be something of a niche interest, but with a talent as funny and as rapier-witted as Jason Kravitz behind the mic, there’s something for everyone in his hilarious, jazz-infused cabaret turn.
Kravitz – or should I say Matthew Discovery, Pride of Tulsa, for that’s who he was on the night I caught his show – is improv-comedy royalty. He’s a sketch comedian, a Broadway performer (The Drowsy Chaperone), and TV and movie actor (he was in the big-screen version of Stepford Wives and guested on hit TV shows including Everybody Loves Raymond and Curb Your Enthusiasm). And for a week at the Crazy Coqs in London’s Brasserie Zedel, he’s throwing away the script and score and making it up Off the Top of his head.
With the help of MD John Thorn at the piano, Johnny G [Gormley] on bass and Sophie Alloway on drums – none of whom has had the chance, or need, to rehearse with their leading man – Kravitz recounts the life story of a new character conjured each night out of his mind. Or, more accurately, out of the fishbowl of ideas provided by the audience, who are asked to fill in a slip of paper when settling into their seats.
‘Words to live by’, ‘A place in the world’, ‘A thing’, ‘An adjective’, ‘A short phrase’ and ‘The last text you sent or received’ all provide the inspiration for an hour and a half of the most surrealist of songs and comedy.
To kick off the first night at Zédel, Kravitz channelled the fictional Matthew Discovery, a son of Oklahoma who eschewed a life on the famous ‘Lifeboats of Tulsa’ and instead sought ‘Health, Beauty & Love’ via trips to India, Venice, Saskatoon in Saskatchewan and Grimsby… the latter giving him the chance to riff out a slow-jazz number extolling the virtues of the gritty, ‘Grimsbiest’ town in the UK.
As the faux-tobiography unfolded, Mr Discovery revealed that he was ‘Naughty But Nice’, through the medium of a beat poem; he asked ‘What Would You Attempt if You Knew You Wouldn’t Fail?’, in the very convincing style of Stephen Sondheim (plenty of suspended dominant sevenths from Thorn); and, via the medium of the waltz and some interpretive dance (!), spoke of his father’s career as a “Racquet Stringer” back in Tulsa. The story reached the heady heights of off-off-off-Broadway – aka Croydon – where Discovery attempted to stage a musical version of his life. All very strange.
To help spin his outrageous yarns, Kravitz is calling on the help of guest performers, and for the press night was joined by the fantastic Ruth Bratt of Showstoppers fame. A noted improviser with a fantastic voice, Brown shared the stage for a swinging (in more senses than one!) duet entitled ‘Is it Just the Two of Us?’ – from the ‘recently discovered lost Gershwin musical No Day But Today!’ The result was a totally credible jazz number that wouldn’t have been out of place in a West End show – honestly, if you weren’t paying attention to the comedy lyrics, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was a standard.
Look out for Joe Stilgoe, Sarah-Louise Young, Alan Cox, Stephen Frost, Rachel Tucker and Le Gateau Chocolat, all of whom are slated to appear, and some of whom have never improv’d before, I hear…
What elevates this evening beyond something you might see at the Comedy Store nearby in Oxendon Street is the fact that Kravitz can really sing – vocally, he reminded me a lot of Paul Anka – and his scratch band is top notch. Johnny G’s bass solo in the rather colourful ‘Fuck it!’ was straight out of Ronnie Scott’s, as was lynchpin Thorn’s piano playing throughout. The band were clearly enjoying every minute of their extemporising, which is always a good sign.
And ultimately, it’s funny! Americans seem to excel at this stuff, and Kravitz is an A-lister. The jokes come thick and fast, and his ability to knock out couplets appears effortless, although his brain must be whizzing along at 100 miles a minute. The close of the show – an accelerating Russian folk duet with Bratt – sent dozens of paper slips flying into the air as each rattled off a string of rhymes inspired by the audience choices. A joy.
Craig Glenday
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